


The Snack That Waves Back!

by I_am_THEdragon



Category: Globozone (Webseries)
Genre: Cannibalism, Gen, Horror, severed limbs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-18
Updated: 2020-08-18
Packaged: 2021-03-06 11:20:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,169
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25968799
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/I_am_THEdragon/pseuds/I_am_THEdragon
Summary: When the employees of Globozone begin receiving their microchip implants, Abdu catches Al performing some unwarranted amputations on his co-workers. Abdu doesn't know how to confront his friend, nor does he know the reason he keeps doing it...





	The Snack That Waves Back!

Abdu gawked, mouth agape, in complete shock at what he had just witnessed. There on the screen in front of him, he could have sworn he’d just seen his best friend Al approach a coworker, sever her arm with no hesitation, and use the severed arm and its newly-implanted microchip to enter the office. Abdu blinked hard and shook his head, suspecting that his mind had been playing tricks on him. After all, staring at those screens all day was enough to mess with anyone’s head. The queue for the microchip implants continued on as normal, as if the gruesome event hadn’t just taken place. Abdu would’ve assumed he had somehow hallucinated it, if not for the splattered blood still clearly visible on the floor.

“No way…” The security guard muttered, shaky with disbelief.

He had known Al to be irrational and even violent at times, but he’d never expected him to go as far as to sever someone’s limb, especially with such nonchalance. No alert signal was given to him, as was usually the case with safety incidents, but Abdu decided it was in his best interest to head down to the platform and see it for himself.

When Abdu arrived, however, all seemed completely in order. The blood splatters on the ground were gone, as if they’d either been cleaned up while Abdu was on his way there or they’d never existed in the first place. This once again left the confused security guard questioning his own eyes and memory. If the surreal sight had in fact been real, Abdu would surely find out about it sooner or later, as he would inevitably meet up again with Al.

  
  
  


When Abdu and Al met up for lunch, they found themselves both unusually quiet. They made awkward, forced small talk as they ate their generic meat and vegetables. Abdu wanted so badly to ask about what he had witnessed earlier from his office, but it was an exceedingly difficult topic to bring up. How does one simply ask a friend if they had sliced off a person’s arm without the risk of sounding completely mad? After all, Abdu still wasn’t sure if what he’d seen was even real.

“Y’know, I really wish the meat portions were bigger in these cafeteria meals.” Al remarked casually.

“Really?” Abdu responded. “I think there’s plenty of meat. I just wish the vegetables weren’t so flavourless.”

“To each their own.”

As the two friends finished their meals, a drone arrived holding a receipt and card scanner. Out of habit, Abdu held out his old Globozone ID card to the device, only to have it buzz in rejection.

“Invalid card.”

“Shoot, I forgot they’ve phased out the cards…” Abdu muttered. “And I haven’t got the microchip yet. Al, do you…?”

“It’s alright, I’ll just punch in my details manually.” Al said as the drone approached him.

Al then took the card reader and began dialling in his ID number and PIN code. It was fortunate the option to do so still existed, as they both would’ve been out of luck otherwise.

  
  
  


Within the following few days, everyone within Globozone had been given their new microchip. Abdu enjoyed the slight extra convenience of being able to wave his wrist where he had once waved his ID card, but he still found himself frequently reaching for it out of habit. After all, Globozone had been using the smart card system for years, but it was true that they had their flaws. A card could easily get lost, stolen, or damaged, whereas a microchip was always safe under its owner’s skin. Unless their arm was severed. That accursed memory still struck Abdu at odd moments, but he was beginning to accept that it was little more than a trick of the mind, or something he had misinterpreted. After all, something as severe as that wouldn’t simply go unaddressed, even in Globozone.

Al, too, enjoyed that slight convenience that came with having a microchip implant instead of the now obsolete smart ID cards. He mentioned this in the line to the cafeteria where he eagerly ordered himself a rather large serving of chicken nuggets.

“You’re hungry today, huh?” Abdu remarked playfully.

“I guess it’s just another one of those days.” Al replied with a shrug. “And you’ll have the usual?”

“Sure, until I get sick of it again.”

As Abdu and Al ate their lunch together peacefully, something in the corner of Abdu’s eye froze him solid. An otherwise unremarkable employee with one distinguishing feature. A prosthetic right arm. Just as soon as Abdu had caught sight of her, she had disappeared around the corner.

“Al! Did you see that?” Abdu exclaimed, shooting up suddenly from his seat. “That woman! Her arm!”

“What about it?” Al asked, his voice muffled through a mouthful of half-chewed chicken.

“Her arm was artificial!” Abdu responded in an unusual frenzy. “It was a prosthetic!”

“Abdu, some people have disabilities or injuries that they can’t control!” Al scolded. “You can’t just go around pointing it out like that!”

“No, it’s not that, it’s just- I thought- The other day, I…”

Al watched skeptically as Abdu stammered out an attempt at a response. The security guard sighed as he sat back down into his seat, shaking his head with brows furrowed in thought. Had that been the same person he’d seen get mercilessly dismembered just a few days prior? He couldn’t remember. It could have all just been a coincidence. Maybe the woman had lost her arm in an entirely different incident. Perhaps that too was just Abdu’s mind playing tricks on him.

  
  


Just when Abdu was finally letting go of what he thought he had seen on his security monitor, the glimpse of what may have been a prosthetic arm had come to torment him. He felt like he had seen something he shouldn’t have, like a child walking in on an unwrapped birthday present and trying to forget he’d seen it, except much more gruesome.

Abdu watched his monitors closely for any clue as to what exactly was going on, if anything at all. But of course, all activity seemed to be occurring as usual. It was quite rare for anything suspicious or alarming to show up, and when it did it was usually in the form of some malfunctioning equipment that posed some safety risk to the people around it.

As he cycled through his many monitors however, Abdu finally spotted something that validated his wild suspicions. A spray of blood across the wall and floor of one of the corridors. As horrific as the sight would usually be, Abdu was excited, as he felt he was finally onto this strange case. He rapidly searched his other monitors, praying to find additional evidence in the form of a knife-wielding Al or a one-handed worker, but the best he got was a glimpse of Al stepping into his dorm and closing the door behind him. Still, Abdu was determined to see this scene with his own eyes.

One would be forgiven for thinking some sort of safety emergency was occurring, as the security guard ran through the corridors in a frenzy. When he reached the scene of the supposed incident, however, his heart sank as he was met with only clean surfaces. The disheartened feeling was short-lived, however, as Abdu inspected the area more closely. It was slightly damp, and emanated a faint chemical smell. The area had just been cleaned. While this was no concrete proof to what he saw, it was a nudge to the idea that perhaps this wasn’t all in his head after all.

  
  


Abdu stared dejectedly at his monitors as he counted the people who appeared to have a prosthetic arm. He had given up on running out of his office, only to find his evidence missing. Now he couldn’t even figure out if what he saw on the monitors was even real. If these people were missing arms, why? When had it happened? Had Al done it? That day Abdu thought he had seen his best friend sever a coworkers arm, it was supposedly to steal her new microchip and get into the office. What reason would Al have to cut off even more people’s arms, especially now that he had a microchip implant of his own?

As if summoned by Abdu’s thoughts, Al showed up at the door, as happy to see him as ever.

“Oh, hey Al.” Abdu greeted, a little unenthusiastically.

“Hey there Abdu!” Al greeted back. “Lunch break started ten minutes ago, what are you still doing here?”

“Oh, I must’ve missed the alert.” Abdu sighed. “I don’t know, Al, I think I need to go visit the medical clinic. I swear I’m seeing things that aren’t there.”

“Is that why you’ve been acting a bit odd these past several days?”

“I’m probably just not getting enough sleep, or something. Maybe if I’m lucky, the doctor will prescribe me a few days off this painfully dull job. C’mon, let’s go get lunch.”

As Abdu watched Al ravenously dig into some sort of mystery meat burger, he couldn’t help but wonder what role his friend played in this whole scenario. Sure, Al had a mean streak sometimes. Sure, he could be violent and reckless at times, and he smelled a bit funny, but he didn’t go around hacking people’s limbs off, did he? As Abdu’s questions finally grew unbearable to contain, he finally caved and let one out.

“Have you noticed people around here missing arms?” He asked.

Al, with his mouth full of food, simply shrugged. Such a vague response was not at all satisfying, but it seemed like the best Abdu was going to get for the time being.

  
  


The next day, Abdu had booked himself in to have a talk with a doctor. If anything was going to give him some peace of mind, it would be a professional opinion. Or at least, as professional as Globozone’s medical team could get. As he sat in the waiting room, Abdu tapped absent-mindedly on the armrests of his chair. When the next patient came in, however, his grip on the armrests tightened so hard that they began to crack, and his knuckles went pale. The man who rode in on his electric unicycle presented an outstretched arm, cut off to a bloody stump just below the elbow.

“Abdu?” The doctor called, emerging from her office as her previous patient left.

Abdu stood from his chair, trembling and wide-eyed, his gaze fixed on the one-handed man as he stepped slowly into the doctor’s room.

“Abdu, what have you come to discuss today?” The doctor asked, searching up the security guard’s medical info on her digital tablet. “You seem very tense and out of focus, are you feeling unwell?”

“The missing arms.” Abdu uttered croakily. “They’re real?”

“Excuse me?”

“All this time, I thought I was seeing things.” Abdu explained. “I saw my friend cut a coworker’s arm off. The prosthetic arms. The blood stains.”

“I don’t quite understand.”

“My friend, he has been cutting people’s arms off, hasn’t he?”

The doctor fell silent for a moment as she considered her patient’s claims. She thought about possibly referring him to a psychologist, but soon reconsidered.

“Well, we have been getting an unusually high number of cases of patients with severed limbs.” She remarked.

“Did you find out how it happened?” Abdu asked frantically.

“Well, that’s supposed to be confidential but… From what I know, they weren’t sure themselves. One minute the arm was there, the next it was gone. Who or whatever was responsible was gone by the time they even noticed.”

“It’s Al, isn’t it…” Abdu muttered, trembling as he grabbed the sides of his head in his hands. “Al did it… Al has been doing it all along…”

“Ah, Al? If you see him, could you tell him he needs to cut back on the meat? It’s not very good for his health.”

  
  
  


Al had left his door unlocked that day, and Abdu wasted not a single second swinging it open. He stood, wide-eyed and slack-jawed at the sight before him.

“Al… No…” He whispered.

“A-Abdu?” Al whimpered, turning to face his unexpected visitor.

To call the scene gruesome would be an understatement. Al sat hunched over on the floor at the other end of the room, Surrounded by severed limbs. The flesh and muscle had been stripped from the bones, not cleanly by the work of knives or scalpels, but crudely, as if by teeth. In Al’s hand, he held a half-eaten human arm, with its flesh partially gnawed away.

“Al…” Abdu whispered, his voice cracking with terror. “Wh-what happened to you…”

Caught in the act, Al stared wide-eyed at his best friend. His mouth was dripping with blood that marked also his clothes and the floor around him. His eyes were not filled with malice or apathy, but fear and remorse. He looked as if he was silently crying for help.


End file.
